This is a particularly ugly season for South Dakota. The weather has been nice for the past few days, which I am so very thankful for. But then again, it could always blizzard tomorrow. For now, though, the snow has almost melted away. But instead of the green grass my heart is longing for, everything is brown, and muddy, and damp, and broken. It’s like the earth is covered in scars sustained from a bitter fight with a long winter. The trees are the ugliest. We don’t have all that many evergreens around here. Most of our trees are the kinds with, well, leaves. In the wintertime the frost clings…

“Winter makes everything terrible,” I thought. I was sitting at an intersection, getting ready to pull out of the grocery store parking lot, watching a little car struggle to make its way up the hill. It was covered in splotches of ice and snow and grime collected when one too many trucks passed it on the interstate on a slushy day. The windshield was clear, but there was still snow on the roof and the hood and icicles clinging to the bottom of the doors and bumper and mud flaps. It seemed to be shaking as it passed, as if to say, “No, please no! It’s far too cold to…

Reading my old journals is hilarious. And terrible. Especially my journals from middle school and high school. And college. So basically most of them. I open them as if I’m peeking into a cage holding a wild animal- slowly, holding the journal at a distance, one eye open, as if I’m afraid the anxiety might jump off of the page and attack me. The paper is absolutely dripping with worry and restlessness. Those of you who know me well know that attaining peace in my mind is something that I struggle with from time to time. The Lord did so much to bring healing in that area of my life…

I don’t know if you know this or not, but Pinterest is a dark, scary place. I hadn’t spent much time there, but as preparation for a women’s retreat I’m speaking at later this month I wanted to do a little research on the negative messages women are fed, sometimes by ourselves and other women around us. So I dove into pinterest to see what kinds of lessons I could learn in the “Health and Fitness” section. What I found was kind of horrifying. For starters, as one of my sisters put it, “so many butts.” Pictures of butts everywhere. Goodness. I don’t even own a full length mirror, so…

(Clearly I was having one of “those” days…) Fear is a liar with a bad outfit and ugly shoes Fear is a liar who needs to brush his teeth. fear is a liar who has no rule over me. I only listen to truth. I only listen to the Master, the Good Shepherd. I don’t hear any voice but His.

On the morning after returning to the United States at the end of the World Race, I woke up in a hotel room in Queens. I was sharing the room with a few of my squad mates, and someone had turned on the TV. For the first time in nearly a year, I was able to watch American news. The anchor on this particular 24 hour news channel was talking about the Boston bombing suspect. Immediately after finishing that report, she transitioned into the next story, “Coming up after the break, it’s a llama on the loose!” Welcome back to America, Jen. Welcome back. That’s not to say the rest…

There is a moment during the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice when Charlotte announces to Lizzie that she’s marrying Mr. Collins. Lizzie is quite appalled, so to explain herself Charlotte says, “I’m twenty-seven years old. I have no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents…” Yeah, I always used to look at that scene, shake my head, and say, “Well, thank goodness that the world isn’t like that anymore!” Except. Today I realized that… I am 27 I have no money, No prospects, And I am, in some ways, a burden to my parents. And the problem is, the world I live in isn’t…

The woman on the youtube video says that rolling out a pie crust is quite simple and not at all a daunting task. The woman on the youtube video is full of lies. I’m rolling and flouring and doing everything she says to do, but my crust is cracking and crumbling and falling apart. I call one of my sisters for confirmation that I am not a complete and total reject who somehow missed out on the cooking and baking gene. She reassures me that her pie crusts fall apart as well, so I take a deep breath and continue on. I have been preparing for this moment for days.…

When I was a little girl my family and I lived in a farmhouse in the country. It had a long driveway lined with cottonwood trees, plenty of fresh air, and little else. No cupboards in the kitchen, an upstairs that was literally crumbling, and when my parents first arrived, walls covered in soot. It also contained a family of mice that made its presence known by squealing when we sat on the couch and left droppings in the clean laundry. By the world’s standards my mother had nothing during this time. Nothing but a note on the fridge that said, “ Keep your lives free from the love of money…

One of my guilty pleasures is watching Hallmark movies with my mom. It’s what we do together. I’m pretty sure my mom pays for cable just so she can get the Hallmark channel. Any time I visit the answer to “what should we do tonight?” is always, “is anything good playing on the Hallmark channel tonight?” Sometimes she even tapes the movies for me. You know, ones that she thinks I really need to see. Like, “A Princess for Christmas.” Obviously. The movies always have a happy ending, and are guaranteed to never give me nightmares. They allow me to spend a couple of hours in happy-land. I’m not sure…